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| US SecDef: Ash Carter |
By SYDNEY J. FREEDBERG JR.
ABOARD SECDEF1: The US will remain steadfast in the face of Chinese complaints as it builds its Pacific coalition, Defense Secretary Ash Carter made clear to reporters en route to the Shangri-la summit in Singapore.
Carter and his staff already are looking past the secretary’s speech here on Saturday to two potential flashpoints this summer:
First, this month, South Korea and the US will probably announce the deployment of an American THAAD missile defense system to the peninsula. China has objected that a THAAD battery could potentially shoot down planes in Chinese airspace, not just North Korean missiles. Carter told the press repeatedly that “this is an alliance decision” about self-defense– in other words, Beijing shouldn’t worry and doesn’t get a vote. This is, after all, self-defense and the decisions of two treaty allies.
In July, the Hague tribunal on the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) is expected to rule on a Sino-Philippine dispute in the South China Sea. (The ruling may come earlier). China won’t abide by the tribunal’s ruling and has hinted it will respond by declaring an Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ) over the disputed area. While unilaterally declaring authority over air traffic in this way would be “provocative,” a senior defense official told reporters, “such a declaration would not affect our own military operations, as the declaration (of an ADIZ in 2014) in the East China Sea did not.”
Read the full story at Breaking Defense